Pentecost was a gift to the disciples and also to the early Church. But it is a gift to us in 2022, also. We are are the followers of Jesus Christ just as the disciples were and he has given us an advocate forevermore. The Holy Spirit lives within the Church, within our hearts, and there is no end to his advocacy, to his love.
When, as for the disciples, we are at our wit’s end, when we do not know who to turn to two, when we don’t know what is going to happen and we fear the worst, then the Holy Spirit is always present in our hearts and will guide us in the ways of love. To enter into this state of love, this state of Christianity, Christ simply asks us to follow him. It is not an easy command, and is full of happy mediums with people we may not really like, full of remaining humble, remaining true, full of episodes in which we need to reach deep down into the gospel message and hear what Christ would have us do, would have a say. This is what Jesus wishes us to do. And at the centre of our life is the Holy Spirit, the one who guides, the one who leads us through the valley of darkness, just as he led Christ through the forty days in the desert. We remember, too, that Christ was drawn into the Desert by the Spirit, in other words the Spirit conveyed him into that place of danger, into that meeting with the devil. Let us not view our own lives in such a binary way: running from evil and running towards good, because it is through tackling evil with integrity that meaningful good comes about. Evil will happen around us and we may even be involved within it. But the spirit will guide us to do the will of Christ in all things. And he is with us always; he is the root of our living in God.
GOSPEL
The Lord be with you.
And with your spirit
A reading from the holy Gospel according to John 14:15-16, 23-26
Glory to you, O Lord
Jesus said to his disciples
‘If you love me you will keep my commandments.
I shall ask the Father,and he will give you another Advocate to be with you for ever,
‘If anyone loves me he will keep my word,
and my Father will love him,
and we shall come to him and make our home with him.
Those who do not love me do not keep my words.
And my word is not my own: it is the word of the one who sent me.
‘I have said these things to you while still with you;
but the Advocate, the Holy Spirit,
whom the Father will send in my name,
will teach you everything and remind you of all I have said to you.’
The Gospel of the Lord
Praise to you, Lord Jesus Christ.